Seven Steps To A Professional Acting Career – Part 1

“What have you done for me lately?!” Mr. Martello called out to his new ensemble cast. He was my high school drama teacher. He was revered by the student body and the community for putting on truly excellent theater that put other schools to shame including some local colleges. But this statement seemed awfully self-serving. He continued, “I don’t care if you were the star of every show you’ve ever auditioned for – that was then, this is now. No one is a star now. ‘What have you done for me lately’ is the question. We’re about to find out. It’s time to get to work.” Mr. Martello was a wise man. He knew that was they way to approach every day.

As you move forward in your acting career, I always want you to be asking yourself that question. Through each of these steps, through every audition, through every day on the set, you must remember that while experience matters, the experience that matters most is the present. That’s good and bad. It’s good because whatever failures you had are in the past and success can begin. It’s bad because, well, that’s a lot of pressure isn’t it? Tough. Take a deep breath, go do your best and let the other people squirm their way out of success. With that in mind, here are the first three steps:

Step 1: Go get some experience.

I don’t care how talented you are or how great your audition is, if you don’t have some kind of a ACTING resume to show a talent agent, casting director, or any other “door-opener”, you are not ready to dive into the professional talent pool. The “Door-openers” know this rule and follow it. As I said in the Getting Started post, this is a business. Would you hire someone with no experience knowing they will be on camera in front of thousands, possibly millions of people – people you want to influence? The answer is almost always a resounding “No”. Ah ha! I hear someone saying “But Larry, what about all those actors who got ‘discovered’ and had no acting experience?” Look, if that really happened (and it may have in extremely rare cases), do you really want to try your luck at getting discovered by accident? If your answer is ‘yes’, you probably don’t have the passion and desire needed to truly succeed in this industry. Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to work our butts off to make it in this business. Check out my Acting for Free?! post for info on getting this critical step done.

Step 2: Go get some PROFESSIONAL headshots.

Headshots are the business card of the acting industry. They are the first impression Door-openers have of you. They are your most important marketing tool. Marketing? Yes – remember this is a business and you are selling YOU. If you give a Door-opener a snapshot of you that your “bestie” took on a good hair day, you might as well hand them a snotty tissue – because that is the look you’re probably going to get. On the other hand, an excellent headshot can get you in front of Door-openers and, on some occasions, even book you the job without an audition! That can happen when you’re being considered for print work and sometimes for specialty work that requires performance skills you possess (e.g. teleprompter experience/certification, juggling, etc.). Bottom line, competitive headshots are a must. Don’t go cheap on your most important marketing tool! Check out my post on Headshots for a more detailed discussion on this topic.

Step 3: Go get some training.

My guess is that if you are reading this blog to get started in the acting industry, you don’t have a Master’s of Fine Arts in Acting from Columbia or NYU. And if you do, you know the value of ongoing acting training from reputable teachers and coaches. Not only is it critical to get outside coaching on your acting, but it is a must on your acting resume’. Acting is a serious art form that can be a very rewarding (and lucrative) career. Even pro athletes have coaches and trainers off the field. You need them when you’re off the stage and camera. My personal endorsement for acting schools in Atlanta is The Company Acting Studio. Classes are very reasonably priced and the training is not only fantastic, but recognized by many door-openers in the industry – especially in the Southeast.

14 Comments

Devon
on August 25, 2013 at 3:25 pm

I stumbled across your blog; I’m a musician myself, but a lot of the advice is totally relevant. Awesome work.

As for the comment about people getting “discovered”, I can guarantee anyone who seemed to “jump to the top” put in a ton of work. People always point to the Beatles as an overnight success story; most people don’t realize that before they Johnny Carson, they were playing 8 hours a day at a club in Germany. After a couple of years of doing that, you would expect them to be great.

In the world of acting, Samuel L Jackson is one of these stories people like to repeat, because he was a social worker before working in film. They usually don’t realize that he got his degree in theater, and worked in plays, made for TV films, and small major film roles from the 1970s on before getting cast in lead parts in the early ’90s

I came across an open call at a hotel. Got my hopes up high for my little girl but something nagging at me. Talks of a show case package plans debiting credit card for a certain amount of months just all seem too unreal. I also send 2 pics with info directly to an agency could even be from camera phone. Guess I want to see your thoughts. Does the first seem like a scam and the second just don’t know.

Hello I saw an add on FB that Tyler Perry is looking fpr actors..I filled the short imfo page out and I got a call to travel an hr to NJ to meet with directors to see what lane they would be interested in and the agency is called Nine9 modeling and talent agency i. nJ…Should I go and does this sound like a scam?

My daughter was pumped about an ‘audition’ at John Casablancas. I agreed to the class to boost her confidence and let her learn a little bit about acting. But, I’m having second thoughts…all these posts about JC being just a scam. I hate to be taken for a ride, but also want to please my daughter. What to do?

Start with a local acting class through the community theater (or even a park district or community school). That would be a great introduction into acting and let you see if it is something she is passionate about.

I really want to get my son who is 2 into acting/modeling I can’t tell you how many times his mom or myself have been stopped in the grocery store or wherever we are at to tell us how cute he is. The problem is we just recently moved to southwest Kansas for my job. For future reference we are willing to move. If you know of aNY talent agencies around here it would help out a bunch.

Jeremy,
Getting kids into acting who are under 3 y/o is really tough because agents know they change so fast (physically) and are too young to really “act”. There also is very little need for 2-year-olds in acting. It’s even harder in southwest Kansas because there really isn’t much in that market. If you are willing to move to a larger market like Chicago, Atlanta, NY, Miami, or LA, or other major cities, you can revisit the opportunities then. Hope that helps. I have a short article here about acting for kids that might be helpful, too. http://actingcareerinfo.com/acting-children/

Hi this is Pam – My daughter went to her first audition for Next Star and she is so excited. After reading the reviews i am not excited. We live in Chesapeake Virginia 23322 and I was hoping you could recommend how to get her started in this business from an area that doesn’t have a lot of contacts, and if you know of anyone in my area you recommend. Thank you